back to this smoking thing...yeah I think there are some cultural/environmental aspects of it...we have a very health conscious gentleman from Russia at our studio ...he is a vegan...goes on fasts, goes to the gym regularly ...has all sorts of discipline... but will tell you if you ask that he came up in an environment where everyone smoked and now just can't quit...

I had a former dance teacher who started in ballet and who moved on to musical theater then ballroom. To hear him tell it, everybody smoked. Everybody. Something to do with both handling nerves and staying thin enough for ballet. :?

One. Grandmambo? Not!!! The Honeymooners is one seminal piece of TV material that has shaped American culture... Everything from the show itself to the Flintstones cartoon (a thinly disguised imitation) to sitcoms today that borrow Honeymooners premises for their shows. End of story. If somebody doesn't know bang-zoom (no offense, Peaches) they have only to google and find it.

Two. I grew up in a Fundamentalist, reformed household, from a religious perspective. So what I think about smoking is strongly shaped by that experience, but not in the way you may think.

If people smoke, chances are they know the risks as well as, if not better than, we non-smokers do. Some of them want to quit and aren't ready. Some of them don't care. Some of them actively want to smoke. Leave them the he** alone. They're going to do what they want to do, period. And if/when they want to quit, they will.

@Peaches. No. There's nothing that smokers can do that will make some non-smokers happy. It sucks, but that's how it is. We're sharing the air, and smoking is ... pervasive. So, having made the decision not to smoke, it's kinda hard for me to be okay with people around me filling the air with cigarette smoke, especially given the risks of second-hand smoke.

However, speaking for me only ... if you want to smoke, smoke. Away from me, yes. But smoke, if you want. It's your right and your decision, as an adult human being. Smoke to your heart's content. You'll hear no guilt or moralizing from me. You know what you're doing and know what you want. So smoke. If you find it offensive that I avoid walking through the smoker's area outside the entrance at work or that I change lanes, so as not to get smoke in my AC, I'm sorry. You choose to smoke. I choose to be smoke-free. My way doesn't impinge on your lifestyle. But, unless you're extraordinarily considerate, your lifestyle can impinge on mine. That's the difference, IMO.

But yeah. I have a lot of empathy for smokers in the US, especially since workplace rules changed several years back and big companies clamped down on workplace smoking. It must feel like being part of an endangered species. :?

If somebody doesn't know bang-zoom (no offense, Peaches) they have only to google and find it.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, of course. I've just never really cared enough to find out where it's coming from. To me, it's just a "my dad" thing.

pygmalion said:

If people smoke, chances are they know the risks as well as, if not better than, we non-smokers do. Some of them want to quit and aren't ready. Some of them don't care. Some of them actively want to smoke. Leave them the he** alone. They're going to do what they want to do, period. And if/when they want to quit, they will.

Click to expand...

Yup, yup, yup. We know what we're doing, and we all have our reasons. None of them are really good, and we all justify it to ourselves in different ways. But, yeah...we know all the risks (who in this day and age doesn't?)...and no amount of preaching to us is going to make a differece. Being ready and willing to quit is something we've got to do for ourselves.

pygmalion said:

@Peaches. No. There's nothing that smokers can do that will make some non-smokers happy. It sucks, but that's how it is. We're sharing the air, and smoking is ... pervasive. So, having made the decision not to smoke, it's kinda hard for me to be okay with people around me filling the air with cigarette smoke, especially given the risks of second-hand smoke.

If you find it offensive that I avoid walking through the smoker's area outside the entrance at work or that I change lanes, so as not to get smoke in my AC, I'm sorry. But, unless you're extraordinarily considerate, your lifestyle can impinge on mine. That's the difference, IMO.

Click to expand...

I understand the shared air and lifestyle-impinging thing, I really do. I guess when I originally asked the question it was more frustrated/rhetorical than anything. I take absolutely no offense at someone walking a wide berth around me if I smoke. Changing lanes I'd never notice. None of that bothers me. Personally, I deliberately stay far away from entrances when I smoke, because I know it's not fair to others. When DH and I smoke at home, we check to see if our neighbors are on their back deck--in which case we smoke out front--to not annoy them (we live in a town house).

I just get frustrated when I know I'm trying to be as considerate as possible, and keep things away from others as much as possible, and still get slammed for what I can't control. Like when I stand a GOOD ways away from the entrance at work, and there is an equally convenient sidewalk which is plenty far away from me, and yet people walk right by me and get upset. It's happened. And I just want to say, "I've done all I can to keep this away from you...you have perfectly comparable options for getting where you're going...you knew I was standing here...there's nothing else I can do to keep you safe...you OPTED to walk by me...so don't take it out on me."

pygmalion said:

But yeah. I have a lot of empathy for smokers in the US, especially since workplace rules changed several years back and big companies clamped down on workplace smoking. It must feel like being part of an endangered species. :?

Click to expand...

Hmmm...not sure about the workplace rules thing. I don't think smoking should ever be allowed inside a public establishment...bar, restaurant, or otherwise. It kind of sucks for me when I'd like to kick back with the girls with a nice margarita, swapping girlie-stories, and chain smoking all night long. But hey, it's not fair to the people who work there.

I don't mind the rule changes at all...I just dislike the hostility and intolerance and the preaching. I think the endangered species is a good thing...I don't want to see more people smoking...especially kids younger than me. I want to see it die out, even though I know it never will.

I think "leper" is a more apt term for how I feel--completely ostracised and rejected. Not that I don't understand it, to a point, I just don't like it. But, hey, I've made my choices.

maybe not...maybe just a statement about one of many health choices that wouldn't be best for a high level competitor...however, it is certainly on ly one of many possibilities...but one can make the blanket statement that it isn't good for anyone...but neither are many other things

I just get frustrated when I know I'm trying to be as considerate as possible, and keep things away from others as much as possible, and still get slammed for what I can't control. Like when I stand a GOOD ways away from the entrance at work, and there is an equally convenient sidewalk which is plenty far away from me, and yet people walk right by me and get upset. It's happened. And I just want to say, "I've done all I can to keep this away from you...you have perfectly comparable options for getting where you're going...you knew I was standing here...there's nothing else I can do to keep you safe...you OPTED to walk by me...so don't take it out on me."

Click to expand...

Those are the same people that vacation in Spain and find out everybody smokes every where. Some times thier waiter may have a cig in there mouth while bringing you your food. The looks one thier faces and comments are
priceless.

Ah. yes, smoking is the root of all evil.
I won't get into it all more than to say I, as both a woman who lost her father to lung cancer when I was a teenager and an ex-smoker myself, am appalled that this culture has taken the easy way out when it comes to harping on smoking. Our air quality is horrific - and it isn't caused by smokers. Lets rake in the taxes and verbally slap around the smokers. A med journal article recently published a study about the high rates of emphysema in a non-smoking population and how that didn't fit with their expected findings. Lets deny medical care to people who eat at fast food joints - it's just wasted money. Anybody who gets a speeding ticket should be jailed for the threat to public safety. People with an IQ below a certain scientifically calculated cutoff should be euthenized due to their inability to take care of themselves as the state sees fit. (I know I'm being hyperbolic, but in reading more and more about the legislation in this country and others meant to "protect us" I'm getting more and more frightened. Hear about the "Medical Futility" law in Texas? I just found out about it and almost threw-up.)
Perfumes send me into anaphylactic shock and laryngeal striter (life-threatening) but what can I do? I just stay away from it all as much as possible. I do get a kick out of it when walking perfume bottles complain of migraines, though. Duh.
I've personally seen alcohol absolutely destroy more lives than cigarettes but drinking is still considered cultured (wine), sexy (mixed drinks), manly-in-a-charming-boy-sort-of-way (beer.) GAG me. I suppose we all focus our righteous indignation where we wish. There's plenty of evil in the world that we can all focus on different issues, as we should. I personally think there are plenty of things that are truly and unambiguously evil in a way that smoking isn't, so I prefer to focus myself over yonder on those . . .
Whatever. End of my presonally whiney rant.
For you smokers, I wanted to pass on what worked for me when I quit. First time I quit I did pretty well for three months until I got a wicked case of adult chickenpox ("Give me a damn cigarette!"), second time I quit was half-hearted and absolute torture for two weeks. Third time was easy as pie - I psychologically prepared for several months, stocked up on nicotine gum, and had my last cigarette on the way into the airport. I went to australia for three weeks - heavy on scuba diving, rainforest hikes, playing with animals at the zoo, holding koalas, wombats, even snakes (I have a terror of snakes so I made myself do it) and Voila! I was a non-smoker when I got back. Didn't even bother me to be around smokers. I had researched the issue and saw that for whatever reason, women need to use nicotine replacement longer than men to be successful. I've gone a little overboard - I've been chewing for 3 years, but in August I'm going on another trip (3 weeks in Belize with lots of scuba diving, rainforest hikes, visiting mayan ruins and tracking down animals to oooh over - I see a pattern here) when I'll give up the gum.
So, I can say a long, very active, very fun, and very relaxing trip works wonders when you're ready to give up the cigs.
Good luck!

This comment was overheard at a recent meeting I attended. During a break, a management person remarked that smokers were better employees - or rather, better-to-control employees.

He said that smokers exhibited such weakness (with the addictive personality and the obvious result of 'defiantly' taking up a habit that is a known health risk) that they tend to be more submissive and easier to keep 'in check' than people who are more health concsious and stronger personalities. Salary, work hours, etc. are all easier to control with the smoker.

The comment was overheard, and was off the record (for obvious reasons) but is very telling nonetheless.

Although, wouldn't all the sniveling earthy crunchy types who follow the latest fad in health be the more docile workers than those same people who buck the overwhelming social pressure and smoke because they damn well want to/like it?

Although, wouldn't all the sniveling earthy crunchy types who follow the latest fad in health be the more docile workers than those same people who buck the overwhelming social pressure and smoke because they damn well want to/like it?

Click to expand...

I think what was meant by the comment is that tho the smokers show bravado, in reality they are the weaker ones. It does not show strength and conviction to do something that poses a health risk to yourself, your immediate family, and everyone that you come into contact with - it shows weakness, is what was implied by this manager.

Candidly, it appears this bravado is exploited by management - and encouraged by them (at the smoker's expense). Just an observation....